Motherboard problems? It has to be

[Senture]

After a very frustrating last 4 days of trying to figure out why the hell my pc is so unstable, I think its down to my motherboard.

It is very unstable, crashing anywhere froma few seconds to 20 mins after power on. I have replaced the CPU RAM Gfx Case PSU Cables and HDD's. If you can confirm this, that would be good (well, not totally). If not, the hunt goes on.

 

[Stonehelm]

What type of cooling are you using?

 

[Senture]

A very bog standard one rated up to 3.8Ghz. The CPU barely heats up, when it was stable I did a core stress run and when it crashed after about 20-30 mins the CPU temp was 42 degrees.

 

[Stonehelm]

What type of crash is it? Freeze up or restart?

 

[urbanfox]

So you've replaced EVERYTHING but the motherboard and you still have the same problems?

What's the specs and detail the crashing.

 

[¤]´)÷¤--§îr Äürøñ--¤÷(`[¤]

If it was the motherboard, surely in the name of jesus you'd see problems immediately?

I got a similar kind of problem when my faithful old AMD 1700+ setup died, though. I found it remedied by a CPU, Motherboard and RAM replacement.

Still, I also saw similar issues in a PC with faulty RAM, however, since you replaced the RAM, it's unlikely that one failed & you shorted the other...

 

[Stonehelm]

It may not even be a hardware problem, could be a software conflict.

 

[Bacardi]

my opinion: check the stock setup of the board according to the manufacturer. If necessary go into BIOS and tweak the voltages and fsb to increase stability. never change any value by more than5% in one go though...

 

[Senture]

Cheers for the replys people

@urban

Motherboard= Asus P5VD1-X, CPU=Pentium D 950, Ram= TwinMos 512MB PC3200, HDD=SeaGate 200GB PATA 100, PSU=550W, Optical Drive= 16x DVD+-RW

The PC simply freezes, no responce form any input device.


@Auron

I can't understand it either. The system was fine running Win Server 2003 R2 but I had to reinstall as a number of aplications refused to work on Win Server 2003. If you're wondering why i haven't tryed to put it back on, the reinstall disk gives a load of read errors and i don't have a working PC to burn another copy.


@Stone

The one point that leads me to think it is hardware, is the fact it crashed 3 times on the "Installing Devices" part of the Win XP install.


@Annon

The system is ran over stock setup. There are limited things I can change, but the Core Voltage isn't one of them. I doubt it is the CPU as it is only 4 days old.

 

[¤]´)÷¤--§îr Äürøñ--¤÷(`[¤]

@Auron

I can't understand it either. The system was fine running Win Server 2003 R2 but I had to reinstall as a number of aplications refused to work on Win Server 2003. If you're wondering why i haven't tryed to put it back on, the reinstall disk gives a load of read errors and i don't have a working PC to burn another copy.

If you've got another PC where you can test the RAM, I strongly recommend you do so. Also, if you can, check the event log, see if any Disk IO errors are occuring.

If you spot anything interesting looking in the event log, slap a shot of it here please

 

[Senture]

RAM has been tested, it works in my other PC fine. Only problem to checking the event logs, is the PC is unstable before i can even finish the OS install. Just got my sticky mits on a fresh set of discs and a new OS, going to give this a try.

EDIT: When I posted my reply to you, my xeon machine was not booting, but now it is.

 

[¤]´)÷¤--§îr Äürøñ--¤÷(`[¤]

RAM has been tested, it works in my other PC fine. Only problem to checking the event logs, is the PC is unstable before i can even finish the OS install. Just got my sticky mits on a fresh set of discs and a new OS, going to give this a try.

EDIT: When I posted my reply to you, my xeon machine was not booting, but now it is.

Well, it may very well be worth getting a new motherboard. I know that's what wound up fixing my PC (with the exact same problem).

However, that said, try booting up with a Linux LiveCD, see if it reboots then, too.

 

[Senture]

Linux LiveCD fell over, so it has to be the board :/

 

[Neptune]

if u havent alrdy solved this problem then turn off ur pc altogeva and then take out all of the fans and the power pack make sure the fans r PROPERLY dust free not 1 litle bitof dust and slowly check to make sure everythin is placed back properly. have u installed any hardware n ur comp reently??? i have a feeling that its ither a faulty wire or it cud be the fact of that ur pc's overheating due to the fans not beeing able to circulate properly

 

[Senture]

Rebuilt the system 8 times now and ran it as a bench, it has to be either the Motherboard. The cooler is brand new, and a few bit of dust wont make a PC lock up.

 

[¤]´)÷¤--§îr Äürøñ--¤÷(`[¤]

There's one final test. Can you disconnect and remove _every_ non-essential peice of hardware. I mean, everything, hard disks, the lot, bar for your DVD drive.

Run the Linux CD from that, and if it still falls over, buy a DFI

 

[Senture]

Sadly to say, it fell over. This causes somewhat a big problem. New MB + RAM is not cheap.

Cheers neways.

 

[¤]´)÷¤--§îr Äürøñ--¤÷(`[¤]

Sadly to say, it fell over. This causes somewhat a big problem. New MB + RAM is not cheap.

Cheers neways.

I feel your pain, mon amis. (Hence my asking you to perform to many of these tests )

 

[Senture]

Big problem is the cost of a new Motherboard and RAM where I have no income now :/

 

[Senture]

This might be a little pre-mature, but it looks like the dumb ****s at asus cant read the memory timings correctly. So far after slacking off the timings back to 2.5 4-4-7 things have got a lot further than before.

Funny enough, my xeon board says the maximum that the RAM can do is 2 3-3-7 but that's at PC2700 speeds. *prays that this is the solution*